1940 Ford Deluxe Coupe - Pretty Swede Coupe

At first sight, Anders "Nisse" Nilsson's '40 Ford DeLuxe coupe may appear to be nothing special. The coupe is a straightforward street rod with steel wheels, solid axles at both ends, a Chevy 350 under the hood, and a tuck 'n' roll interior. It's a classic recipe for a nostalgic rod. The superbly thought-out details-along with its flawless look thanks to the perfectly polished paint-distinguish Nisse's creation from many similar rods.

1/7

Although his grandfather's '58 Anglia DeLuxe is what got Anders interested in cars, the '40 is his first Ford. For a long time, he was a "Bow Tie boy," and built three Camaro drag cars-one of which was a black '69 Camaro SS 396 (and yes, the paint was just as well polished as the '40). After building a couple of '57 Chevrolet Nomads, Anders tried to track down his grandfather's Anglia, but that search-and-rescue attempt ended at a junkyard in Denmark.

Anders, together with his parents, runs a Statoil gas station in Lomma, Sweden. Although the company takes up a lot of time, he still manages to squeeze in some of his car projects. He had thought of building a nostalgia street rod based on a '39-40 or '46-48 Ford for quite a while. In fact, he thought about it for so long that he knew exactly how the rod would look if he made the plans a reality.

"I caught the hot rod bug from Christer 'The Bubble Gum King' Persson and his buddy/mechanic, Uffe Larsson," recalls Anders. "Christer's yellow '40 Ford coupe is real eye candy. After I'd checked it out a few times, I decided to get one myself and finally discovered my '40 in the classifieds of Wheels Magazine here in Sweden."

2/7

A young man from northern Sweden originally imported the coupe from California, where he had discovered it in a plumber's backyard in Los Angeles. The car previously had a series of other owners before Anders ran across the car, but the '40 was in good running condition with decent paintwork when he bought it ... at least most of us would have thought so.

After driving the coupe for a short while, Anders couldn't bear the sight of the black paint any longer and stripped it down to the bare metal. "The paint had lots of little bumps that I suspected were rust in the pores," he says. "In the end, I took the whole body off and had all the parts sandblasted and zinc sprayed. There is no way the body will start to rust again."

His friend, Richard Berngard, replaced a few small rust spots with new sheetmetal. The chassis looked OK, but it too was torn apart and sandblasted. Finally, Mats and Erold at Aktuell Billack in Malm painted all the parts individually in Sikkens' blackest black.

While the body and chassis were being sprayed, Anders made good use of the time by overhauling the engine, which is from a '69 Camaro. The mill is now bored to 355 ci and has a few more ponies. A '55 Cadillac air cleaner and Offenhauser valve covers may fool most guys, but the engine is meaner than it looks.

5/7

As is so often the case, this project only worked out with the help of some really good, and sometimes enthusiastic, buddies. Uffe Larsson helped with the chassis and lowered the hood; Richard Berngard, Sonny Nylen, and Anders' father, Kjell, helped him assemble the body. Luckily they all knew the words "good enough" were not part of Anders' vocabulary, so they knew it had to be perfect-otherwise Nisse would do it all over again.

Anders also received a helping hand with the paint finish. "At first we sanded the body with 1,200-grit paper to remove the inequalities after the paint job. For the polish, I used a Festo machine and 3M professional products," he says. "I achieved this result after four goes. I sealed it with a special wax mixture from the USA."

You'd think that would be enough for the moment-but you'd be wrong. Anders has already moved on to another project, a lowered '57 Nomad painted black, of course!

DrivetrainThe '69 Camaro 350 was bored .030 over and filled with TRW 11.0:1 pistons and a COMP Cams Magnum series camshaft. The GM high-performance 2.02 heads are ported and port-matched. The engine breathes in through a Holley 650-cfm carburetor on a GM intake manifold and out through Hooker 1 5/8-inch high-performance headers and a dual-exhaust system with Flowmaster 2 1/2-inch mufflers. A GM Turbo 350 trans with a B&M converter provides reliable shifting duties.

ChassisThe stock frame was cleaned up and partially boxed for a little added strength. The stock front wishbone was split and the spring eyes were reversed. Volvo Amazon disc brakes were modified to fit the straight-axle. The rear suspension consists of a Total Cost Involved leaf spring kit and lowering blocks with a GM 10-bolt rearend.

Body & PaintA '40 Ford doesn't need much in the way of custom mods to look perfect. The only thing done here was lowering the hood slightly and getting it arrow-straight before the black paint was laid down.

InteriorContinuing on with the perfect-combo theme, the interior was done in a red leather tuck 'n' roll with black Mercedes carpet. The original dash, gauges, and steering wheel were restored, and a Moon tach was added for a touch of hot rod flavor.